A call to arms!

By Bernard Roth

Those of you who have seen the picture of Tom Hill on the Iron Wino page may be curious about Tom's "epaulets". Tom likes to tell tall tales about his athletic prowess, how he captains a bowling team, and all. But those of us who know him well know that Tom's talents are better suited to captaining a forest fire evacuation, or for that matter, any competition in which retreat is the better form of valour.

So what is it with those "epaulets"?

Tom, he of an inventive, though off-kilter, mind, is quite the tale teller. Unfortunately, his is not the real story behind those hideous shoulder mounted frou-frous.

You see, in 1967, Tom Hill was a down on his luck actor relegated to playing bit parts in small town dinner theaters and walk-on extra roles in TV commercials. He went through many stage names, but in the SAG he was listed under the name Jim Doonan. One day, a letter from Paramount Pictures shows up in his mail with the name James Doohan on the envelope. Tom, still hung over from a night of serious Scotch (well, come to think of it, in those days all of his mornings followed nights of serious Scotch drinking) didn't note the subtle misspelling and ripped that envelope open. The note told Mr. Doohan to be on the lot for shooting starting at 0900 the following Tuesday. Somehow, the studio got the wrong address because of the similarity in names, but that was all the break Tom needed.

He showed up at Paramount on schedule, the note getting him onto the set. Apparently no one was the wiser until Gene Roddenberry asked why his chief engineer wasn't on the set. Well Tom was red faced and bleary eyed, like any good Scot would be at 0900 after a night of serious Scotch, but he was no Scotty. However, they did need an extra.

So while the real Scotty was rounded up, Tom was taken to wardrobe. It wasn't exactly the lead role Tom had felt was his due, but he would get to appear on a hit TV show, so he didn't object to the part.

Well what Tom didn't realize was that he'd only be shown from the shoulders down. That's right! You never get to see Tom Hill's glowing mug on that episode. But you do get to see his torso, covered in tribbles, during a brief pan across the interior of the Enterprise.

Tom kept that shirt, upon which were sewn a dozen or so tribbles. Over the years, Tom would wear his Trekkie shirt, tribbles and all, to numerous Trekkie conventions. There'd be Tom, sitting at a worn metal card table, with a hand drawn poster board sign reading, "Famous Star Trek Extra", chatting with the nerdy, pimply, shy kids who were too scrawny and weak to push their way through the crowds attempting to garner an autograph from someone truly famous, like Walter Koenig or the real James Doohan.

So whenever one of these pathetic loners would be wandering around aimlessly, hoping to find a friendly sort to strike up some banal conversation about Trek trivia, there'd be Tom calling out, "Hey! Kid! Remember me? I was the guy covered in tribbles. See! I still got some on my shirt. Come on over here. I'll let you pet them." Well most of the kids were smart enough to listen to what their parents told them about strange men. But occasionally one would take Tom at his word and go talk to him about what it was like to be a faceless extra on Star Trek. And out of the graciousness of Tom's heart, he'd give away one of his tribbles, cutting it from his shirt and signing it on its, well... um... wherever it is that tribbles have a bit of skin showing.

Over the years, after many Trekkie conventions and mostly being ignored, Tom finally gave up his stint as a famous ex-Star Trek extra. Down to the final two tribbles, attached at his shoulders, Tom leaves a legacy that is unparalleled in all of Trekkie-dom.

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